'Imperial breeze' to cool Tokyo

First, there was the "Cool Biz" campaign.Now, Japan will turn Tokyo into "Cool City", an ambitious project that government officials believe will put Tokyo at the forefront in environment conservation.

And they will even have a little imperial help, the Asahi Shimbun said. Starting in April, the Environment Ministry will channel cool air from the verdant (grassy) grounds of the sprawling (spread over a large area) Imperial Palace in Tokyo to the City's sweltering (hot) central business district (CBD), the newspaper reported.

Plans call for creating "wind passages" by planting green zones along the main roads on the east side of the palace.

Those zones, say officials, will allow cooler air to travel towards the Tokyo Station area and its surrounding

 swathes (layers) of office buildings in the summer. "The plan is to turn the whole area from Tokyo Station to the Imperial Palace - which serves as the gateway to Japan - into a showcase of our measures to combat global warming," the Asahi quoted an unnamed Environment Ministry official as saying.

"Hopefully, the idea will spread nationwide."

According to the Asahi, officials say the initiative will help alleviate (lessen) the "heat island" effect and cut the use of air-conditioners, leading to lower carbon dioxide emissions.

"Heat island" refers to the higher temperatures experienced by urban regions compared to their surroundings.

The project is the latest effort by Japan to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges (compels) industrialised countries to reduce output of greenhouse gases.

Last year, the government launched the "Cool Biz" drive to encourage bureaucrats (government officials) to dress down to cut down on air-conditioning use.

That helped reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 27,000 tonnes during the summer.

While the heat-island effect is turning many areas in metropolitan (capital) Tokyo into tropical hot spots, an experiment has found that the Imperial Palace is one of the capital's cool oases, the Asahi said. In one experiment conducted throughout August, researchers found the daily average temperature at the Imperial Palace was about 2 degrees celsius lower compared to nearby urban areas, the newspaper said.

But researchers found that the cool air tended to pool high up and stay there. Little trickled out to surrounding urban areas. Creating a wind passageway will allow the cool breezes to travel further, they said.

The "Cool City" project will focus on measures such as planting greenery on the roofs and the walls of buildings that line the streets, the Asahi reported.

The Straits Times